The present invention relates to process environment air monitoring and, in particular, to the monitoring of such environments as hospital operating rooms and sterilization rooms. It has been found that low level contamination by vapors such as anesthesia gases in operating rooms or bone glue vapors in sterilization rooms can have detrimental effects on the personnel who have long term exposure. These effects include malignancies, birth defects, and other adverse medical conditions. Various regulatory agencies have recently been invoking stricter rules regarding the tolerance exposure level for hospital personnel to such vapor contamination. Sampling teams have been used to periodically come into hospitals and monitor gas exposure in the rooms where these dangerous vapors may exist. But such visits are expensive and consequently rare.
The use of monitoring equipment including infrared (IR) detection equipment has been suggested to detect the vapors. An infrared detection system utilizes the fact that many of these dangerous vapors have a peak in their absorption spectrum somewhere in the infrared range. Such systems are commonly known in the art and used in various vapor detection disciplines.